To test the full extent of my new TRUE power.

You flex your gauntleted hand, finding that, even though it had changed and grown, it still feels like a second skin to your senses. Actually, it seems to feel even more natural to you, despite it now engulfing more of your arm and growing more intimidating in appearance. The power that flows from it and into your body makes the connection between you and the gauntlet feel right, to tell the truth and, were you not being fed such power, you might wonder if the dark energy coursing through you might not be clouding your perceptions to make you feel that way...but, of course, you do not think that as you revel in the power now coursing through you.

You focus on that power, feeling it like a great rapid river that courses through your body and fills you to the brim. It seems to run through your very veins and touch every inch of you, inside and out. You find you enjoy that sensation quite a bit and you smile to yourself as you close your eyes and let the power flow over and through you. You feel it envelop you and, as it does, you grasp something within it. You find some instinct within you triggered and you grasp at the power that surrounds you almost like it was a physical thing, gathering it up in your grasp until it feels like it is concentrated in your gauntleted hand.

You open your eyes then and you look at the gauntlet, seeing that it is again glowing with light. It is a swirling mixture of red and blue that surrounds your gauntlet at that moment as you gather your newly gained power around it. Something whispers at you in the back of your mind and, as if on instinct, you mentally concentrate until that swirling energy becomes concentrated, shrinking down around your gauntleted hand until it is only collected in your palm. You hold your hand palm up and the swirling energy of red and blue shines brightly upon it and you smile as you feel more than hear another whisper at the back of your mind.

You draw your arm back as though readying a strike and then, with a dark growl of exertion leaving your lips, you thrust your arm forward and out with the palm held forward towards a medium sized boulder off to the side of the open cavern where the naiad's spring was located. As soon as you do this, the energy collected in your palm seems to explode forth and, from your hand, what looks to be pillar of water shoots forward. Like a geyser originating from your hand, the torrent of water shoots out and slams into the boulder, sending the rock rolling across the cavern as though struck by a giant's fist. It is pushed by the water torrent from your palm until it slams into the wall with a thunderous impact, causing the boulder and wall both to crack from their collision. With that crack weakening it, the boulder flies apart as the rush of water that left your hand hits it with such **** and velocity that even water becomes as powerful as a blow from a mace.

Finally, the energy you'd collected is exhausted and the torrent of water ceases, leaving you with a dripping palm and a bit of physical tiredness. It seems that using your newfound power was not without cost as you feel almost as though you'd gone through an hour of hard physical training while in full armor. Still, it seemed worth some physical wear if you could bring such power to bear as you had right now. And, though you'd exhausted the power you'd collected in your gauntleted hand, you could feel that the energy you'd absorbed from the naiad still existed within you, slowly replenishing itself like a bucket being filled by the trickle of rain water. That power was not finite, it seemed, and would replenish itself with time.

You smiled darkly to yourself at that as you knew, with such power within you, you'd be able to grasp your goal of bringing pain and ruin to those who'd betrayed you all the easier. Yes, you'd make your enemies pay with the power you now possessed and then, when you were done making them suffer, you'd add their power to yours. You didn't know how you knew such a thing was possible, but you felt that it was and that thought only made your dark glee all the more prominent as you chuckled darkly to yourself once more.

You basked in that shadowy joy for a few moments longer before finally settling down and getting back to your current situation. Because, if you wanted to make your enemies suffer with the power you possessed, you first had to get out of these underground caverns and find them, didn't you?